"Transnational solidarities: Immigrant communities in Argentina facing the Great War"

MARÍA INÉS TATO

Zurich

Conferencia; International Conference Global War, Global Connections, Global Moments; 2018

University of Zurich

During theFirst World War, the belligerent states appealed to the banner of the homeland in danger to mobilize their societies for total war. The call to the homefront also included the citizens residing overseas, showing the global and transnational character of the conflict. This paper focuses on a quintessential transnational actor: migrant communities, which constituted an intersection point between their countries of origin and their host societies. Distance usually inspires in most migrants a peculiar, interwoven national identity, forged from their diaspora experience and from different degrees of integration to the reception countries. Wartime posed to them a serious dilemma around the extent of the solidarity due to the homeland, especially in the case of the second generation - born and raised abroad. At the same time, the strong connectionswith their new homes fostered the immigrants´ active involvement in local publicdebates.            This paper aims to tackle these dynamic exchanges analysingthe mobilization - and counter-mobilization - of immigrant communities in Argentina and its local and global impact during the Great War.